#anticapitalist books about Personhood & a killer robot who just became A Person; robot is in a committed not-relationship w a cargo carrier

[saturdaysky]

hello! i hope you don't mind a message, but i am just excited to see someone else who liked AMCE and would love to know if you have recs for books that are similar, because i've been thinking about it for like a month straight since i finished reading it and would love something else to occupy my brain the way that it did. no pressure to answer ofc, just happy to share good vibes over a book :)

I do not mind it at all! <3

I do have some books that scratched a similar itch as A Memory Called Empire! I looooved the thoughtful focus on culture and language and identity within an intricate setting, so these recs follow that pattern somewhat.

Under a cut because this got kind of long.

The Imperial Radch trilogy by Ann Leckie

Liked the exploration of culture, identity, and imperialism in AMCE? You will probably like these books, since they also grapple with those themes. Also present is the exploration of personhood, who has it, and who does not -- because our main character is a person who used to be a starship. Or well, sort of. Wikipedia has a decent blurb:

The novel follows Breq—who is both the sole survivor of a starship destroyed by treachery, and the vessel of that ship's artificial consciousness—as she seeks revenge against the ruler of her civilization.

These books are honestly some of my favorite books ever. They combine a really thoughtful and deliberate focus on all the stuff mentioned above, fascinating plots and world-building, and characters who absolutely made me Feel Things. Highly recommended if you like, say, emotionally closed-off and damaged characters learning to care and be cared for while also skillfully navigating an intricate web of power to pursue their goals and reckon with the harm they've caused. But with bonus smart thoughts about robots.

The Foreigner series by C.J. Cherryh

I haven't fully made my way through this series, but it's rewarding every time I sit down to read another book. The books follow Bren Cameron, diplomat to an alien court, as he negotiates the intricate web of politics and intrigue involved in making sure the crash-landed colony ship he represents doesn't get obliterated or obliterate anyone else, despite humans making some monumental fuck-ups in the recent past.

And when you live and work and eat among one people, how much do you really belong to the people you came from? Of course, neither side really trusts someone who straddles both worlds, and to cap it off, the atevi people he lives among are different from humans in a fundamental way: they have no word for friend or love because those are alien concepts to the atevi. They do not feel such things. Instead, they live by an intricate web of obligation and favors. Trust is something a little more practical and a lot more deadly, for the atevi.

But these are not heartless novels -- part of the joy is watching the main characters grow meaningful relationships, even though the form is fraught and strange and never quite means the same thing to the people on either side.

If you like slow and thorough explanations of culture where meeting with your friend's grandmother is a potentially perilous activity (because the tea might be poisoned, because she might take you on a hunting trip you won't come back from, because she's a formidable political power and might be trying to assassinate your friend, because your friend might know all of this and have sent you anyway, also your friend is the king) these are books you might like.

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison

If you like deep dives of culture, language, identity, and loyalty within the deadly intrigue of a fantasy court, I hiiiiighly recommend this book. The book follows Maia, the youngest and least-favored heir to the throne who gets unexpectedly crowned when everyone else in line dies and must quickly learn to survive the cutthroat politics. But Maia isn't cutthroat by nature; he is kind and must negotiate how to keep that kindness in the face of pressures that would be easy to solve with cruelty, as well as people keen to take advantage of what they think of as a weakness.

This book'll hit you with a lot of fantasy language at first (it's a focus of the book), but if you stick with it you'll be fine. You're learning all this intricate court language at the same time as our protag; he too is a little out of his depth at the start.

Steerswoman series by Rosemary Kirstein

I dearly want to go back and read these -- it's been a few years, but they absolutely sucked me in. The books follow Rowan, a steerswoman, as she tracks down the mystery of a strange and incongruous gemstone. In-universe steerswomen are basically traveling scientists and naturalists who have taken an oath of truth.

The books start out in what seems like your fairly typical Standard Fantasy Setting with wizards and dragons, but as Rowan learns more about the strange gem, it's clear that this Standard Fantasy Setting is...not as it seems. There are three things that I loved about these books: the sense of wonder and discovery as our fantasy scientist protag reasons through problems and begins to discover she lives in a sci fi world, the interesting relationship between the main characters, and the excitement you as a reader have when YOU realize exactly what mysterious object Rowan is describing and what the implications of that are for the setting.

The Broken Earth trilogy by N.K. Jemisin

Riveting series -- brutal and beautiful. Straddles the line in some respects between sci fi and fantasy. Follows characters who live on a far, far-future Earth plagued by catastrophic climate events called "Seasons" that last generations. There are some people born who have power drawn from the earth; these people are alternately hated and ruthlessly trained to hone their powers to attempt to prevent another Season. (This sort of sounds like the setup to a YA coming-of-age novel, but it is really really not.)

The world and fantastical aspects are fascinating (cyclical post apocalyptic societies! geology magic!), and the books themselves explore family bonds, racism in both a personal and systemic sense, and broken systems and the wounds they leave upon the people within them even as those people wound others. The series is not a light read, but it is a good one.

Literally anything by Ursula K. Leguin

All of her work could be recommended if you liked AMCE. Her writing spans fantasy and science fiction, and includes thoughtful and moving explorations of some similar ideas: culture and cultural exchange, gender, different societal setups, you name it.

If you're looking for a good novel, The Left Hand of Darkness is a classic for a reason. If you'd like a sample platter of interesting short stories, The Birthday of the World and Other Stories is wonderful.